Spring is beginning to steal over the horizon.

Eugene Ware

Tuesday

May 15, 2018 at 12:01 AM

There is hope that Spring in our area has now officially decided to arrive. Some spring flowers are in blossom and parts of my grass are slowly turning into what I now can call a lawn. Still a bit cool at night, but on Presque Isle the woodlands and the park's animals seem to know spring HAS arrived.

For what seems forever, the trees in our area have stood bleak, bare, and black against the winter skies. But soon, I am sure you should begin to notice a green veil slip over the Presque Isle and your yard. Some of you already must have seen a very nearly imperceptible kiss of color on some of your bushes. Slowly, but with very deliberate progress, small buds will appear on the trees and shrubs in our area. Yes, we can still might see scattered sleet and slightly cooler weather. However, SPRING is getting ready to open its arms and welcome us to its yearly burst of new energy.

Now, I personally know spring is getting ready to arrive because my mailbox has been stuffed nearly every day with seed, plant and fruit tree catalogs. I don’t mind most of them because I do order seeds and plants for late May and June planting. However somehow, I am now on three commercial nursery catalog mail lists. (That where you must order a minimum of 1,000 plants) That is a bit much. Yes, I have already sent my seed and plant order in for the summer for my flowers and vegetables and the seeds have already arrived.

As I have realized over the years is that some changes that occur in the natural world are violent and completely unpredictable. Just remember our early Christmas present in Erie last year. Others are calm and regular; these are only natural cycles that are really taking place daily, seasonally, yearly or at even longer times. Just recall the old Erie saying, “Don’t like the weather in Erie, just stick around a day.”

Nature indeed have a mind of its own. It does not think or plan ahead. Instead, all living things are regulated by automatic inner processes phased so closely to events that we call “biological clocks.” The whys of this are even in this day and age are mostly not yet fully understood. Yes, some plants and animals respond to light, mainly to changes in the number of hours of daylight. Still more tend to react to changes in temperature and moisture. That is nature.

Yet, these weather and light changes are not present when in New England, “Sugaring Time” begins as soon as sap runs in the maple trees. This usually starts while the snow is still quite deep and the nights cold. How do the trees know? I don’t think even the scientist know.

But, even in this area sometimes subtle changes of color can herald an early spring even before it really starts. Sometimes, looking closely you can see twigs of willow and the beaks of Starlings turn yellow in midwinter. In my yard, I started noticing a green tint to the edges of my many “Burning Bushes” over two weeks ago.

All winter the woods and forest floors in this area have been cold and well lighted due to the lack of leaf cover on the trees. These leafless trees have let in plenty of sunlight to the forest floors. Now, as spring approaches, the sun rises higher and higher, so the sun rays now fall more directly onto the forest soil. In fact, in Ohio and Pennsylvania, the forest floor usually reaches its highest daily maximum temperature in April. This is before the trees develop their full cover and cool the temperatures with shade.

The old saying that, “April showers bring May flowers,” is somewhat true. But on Presque Isle and in our area, many wildflowers and plants are usually quite busy “before” May. Some of our most wonderful plants and wildflowers, show their stuff all through April. My personal favorite is the three varieties of “Trillium” that grow in our area. This wildflower is also known as “wake-robins.” Presque Isle has some Trillium, but the Bluffs State Park is a beautiful area for the plant during the March/April blooming season.

Here is a list of some of the early spring wildflowers and plants that show early Spring activity in our area.

One sure sign of approaching spring is the chorus that begins in the evenings and early mornings. It’s the song that the frogs and toads in woodland’s wet places who start to serenade us with. The increasing length of daylight and temperature of early spring stimulate their activities. The earliest choristers are almost always Presque Isle’s many, many spring peppers. By mid-March and into late April the area around horseshoe pond can become a constant concert of their high-pitched voices. This will shortly be joined by species after species in the concert, until finally, it fades away with the coming of drier weather. But, that did not happen this year due to the strange late Spring we are experiencing.

If you are a woodland walker on Presque Isle, you should begin to notice something else begin to appear soon after the noisy frogs have started their springtime concert. As the spring sun gets a bit warmer, the trees start to dress in green, and new herbs and flowers begin to appear daily. The park’s salamanders also begin to appear in significant numbers. Of course, that is if you are quick enough to notice them. You will find them among the twigs, and damp leaves on the forest floors. They also hang out near dead logs and snags. By day, that is where you are likely to see them, and at night they scuttle all about the floor of the woodland.

As spring progresses on the park, I will try to keep you updated about what the park has to offer the naturalist in you. That will include which flowers are blooming, when the frog chorus finally begins and many other some pretty neat things you can see and do on the park. Until then:

See you on the park!!

Gene Ware is a published author of 8 books and is a board member of the Presque Isle Light Station, the Tom Ridge Center Foundation and the Presque Isle Partnership. He is also a contributing writer for goerie.com. Send questions and comments to ware906@gmail.com

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